Backstage
by Dotty Harrison
Summary: Lina Lamont sneaks backstage after a boring play to have a little talk with Kathy Selden.


As the lights rose after the final curtain call, the audience picked themselves up from their seats, ignoring the burning sensation in their hands from their enthusiastic applause. The rows filed out into the lobby, discussing the phenomenal play that they had just sat through. Praise spouted from nearly every mouth in the room, and the people looked forward to returning home and relaxing after such a pleasant night at the theater.

Among the happy and satisfied faces was an uncharacteristically unflashy and a very grumpy Lina Lamont. The Hollywood leading lady wore the cheaptest, least sparkly outfit she had in her closet, wistfully thinking that she could have gone to a flashy premiere. Instead, she had sat in a dingy old seat watching a play with no action, constant talking, and a cast where everyone was a useless nobody.

Well, almost everyone.

Lina fought the urge to elbow her way out of the crowd of people leaving the small theater, knowing that making a scene would only draw attention to her. What would her fans think if they saw her spending time in a cruddy little theater watching a dumb play? And even more frightening, what would the press think?

It was these fears that ran on repeat in Lina's head as she finally made her way outside, crept her way into the nearby alley, snuck in through the side entrance of the theater, and silently slid into the play's leading lady's dressing room.

"Lina!" Kathy Selden turned from her vanity when the door opened and the Hollywood starlet entered her room. Her eyes widened in worry. "You can't be in here!"

"Oh, calm down, ain't nobody saw me come in," Lina huffed. "I snuck in through the back.

Kathy hardly seemed mollified. "Are you sure?" she asked, craning her head towards the door as Lina shut it.

"Whaddya' think I am, dumb or somethin'?" Lina crossed her arms and stared Kathy down, challenging her to suggest just that. "I ain't so ready to have the press swarmin' in here to find out just what Lina Lamot is doin' in a crummy joint sneakin' into a room of some nobody actress."

Kathy's shoulders finally relaxed, and she brushed away the insult from the moody blonde. She stood up from her chair, brushing the last of her stage makeup away with a cloth. "So how was it? You weren't too bored through it, were you?" she asked, speaking softly as she approached Lina.

"Oh no, it was a real thriller," Lina replied, not trying to hide the yawn that stretched her painted mouth open. "A mile a minute."

With almost anyone else, Kathy might have started a passionate speech about the majestic art of theater and how it could never compare to movies. Instead, she pictured Lina Lamont, who loved the silver screen and all the overblown cheesiness that Hollywood pumped into their pictures, sitting down for two hours to watch a show with no orchestra accompaniment, no action, no brawny heroes, and full of talking. It warmed her heart to imagine it, even though she could visualize Lina nodding off several times when she wasn't on stage. "Oh Lina, darling, I'm so happy you came," she crooned, melting into the other woman's arms.

Lina couldn't help but smile as Kathy's warm body pressed against hers. "Well, it wasn't too bad. You're really somethin' under all those theater lights." A terrifying thought suddenly crossed her mind, and she grabbed Kathy's shoulders and pushed her back so she could give her a worried look. "I ain't gotta go to the show tomorrow night, do I?"

The brunette laughed, and Lina was captivated by her round cheeks and sparkling eyes. "No, of course not. I wouldn't put you through that again." Kathy's smile quivered gently as she took Lina's face in her hands, tears of happiness threatening to spill from her eyes. "Thank you."

Lina often enjoyed going to afterparties following premiers, even for stuffy old plays, but that wasn't an option for her anymore when Kathy was involved. The blonde would have to duck out of the theater, leaving Kathy alone in her dressing room again. They would take two separate cabs home to their little apartment, farther from the studio than Lina would have liked but a necessity to keep the press from discovering them. This thing she had with Kathy took more work than Lina had ever done for anything in her privleged life.

But when Kathy leaned in to kiss her and Lina could rub her fingers through her lover's short brown curls, she found the work was worth it.


End file.
